Shards of Kaleidoscopes
by Lithosphere
Summary: Snippets from Mirage of Kaleidoscopes storyline.
1. Chapter 1 - Uchiha Miyako

**Title:** Shards of Kaleidoscopes

**Summary:** Snippets from Mirage of Kaleidoscopes storyline.

**Disclaimer:** Author does not own Naruto.

A/N: Wrote this side story because I've been getting a lot of requests and people seem to like my main plot a lot so I'll give this a shot to see if people like it or not. Enjoy! ^^

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**Uchiha Miyako **

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She knows that she'll never be able to hold the children being born because she will be dead once they come out. She should hate them for taking her life and her future but she doesn't. Miyako wanted so much more in life than to die in childbirth. But alas, it was not meant to be. She screamed as the doctors urged her push and cried her strength left her. Miyako felt such fear, such hate, such overwhelming desperation to live but she wouldn't be able to.

She wasn't a main branch member of the clan, and not the luckier one of three sisters – one who married into the main and one who died with the love of her love on the battlefield. Uchiha Miyako is a weak, cowardly woman who did not become a kunoichi and who married a branch Uchiha male.

The man she married was a shinobi, but he was understanding to her plight and position and treated her kindly. His name was Uchiha Keisuke, a man with raven black hair and pale brown eyes – and no sharingan – a half breed. It wasn't the love she dreamt of as a child, or the life she wanted, but Miyako was content to live like that.

When she became pregnant for the first time, she and Keisuke were so happy and spent so much time painting the baby room and buying clothes and dreaming of what their child would look like. But then she lost the baby and everything just stopped for her. Keisuke did not blame her or scorn at her like the rest of the clan did. He comforted her, whispered words of love and assured her that the next one would definitely come through.

She believed him.

One by one, one by one, one by one, each child never made it past time month and Miyako fell into despair. Keisuke never blamed her, never hated her, but he always wore that sad smile. And just as they were about to give up, Miyako grew with child once more. This time it was different, Miyako felt strong, felt happy and the world grew bright and beautiful.

Her main-branch sister came to visit with her husband, and the two had no children after so many years. They requested to adopt her child into their family but Miyako didn't want to give up her child. Keisuke refused rather violently and it was the first time she ever saw her husband so angered. Later that day as she sat down on the rocking chair in the baby room holding the small socks she picked out, Keisuke wrapped his arms around her stomach at pressed his ears against her sweater.

"Do you think it'll be a girl?" He asked, excited like a child.

"I don't know, but I do hope it's a boy so it'll continue your name," Miyako replied.

Keisuke shook his head and his hand rubbed her stomach, "I always wanted a girl."

When the doctor confirmed that she was carrying twins, she and Keisuke were so happy. They bought another crib and discussed about names.

"How about Mitsuki for a girl and Kouta for a boy," Miyako suggested.

"What if they're both girls? How about we call one girl Mitsuki and the other Aiko, I've always like that name," Keisuke stated as he rubbed her stomach and smiled as he felt a small kick.

"And if it's two boys, we'll call one Kouta and the other one Ryou," Miyako whisper as she pressed her hand on top of Keisuke's and they both felt another kick.

And a single missioned destroyed the happiness she worked so hard for.

When Keisuke left for a mission and didn't return, Miyako felt as though her world was crashing down.

A month after the funeral, Miyako walks in a state of half-life and half-death as she grows weaker and weaker. And then her water breaks and there is so much blood and she is screaming and crying for Keisuke and she is rushed to the hospital.

The child is pulled from her womb and Miyako sighs in relief and sucks in air as she prepares herself for another round. The child is red and wrinkly and wet from the bath water as it is laid beside her and Miyako raises her weak arms and holds the bundle in close and traces the delicate features.

"It is a girl," the nurse says kindly with a hint of sorrow.

Love so fierce filled her heart and Miyako wishes that she would be able to protect her little girl but cries bitterly because she will not be able to.

There is so much pain as the doctor chooses to cut her open to save the child and she sees her sister standing at the door and knows that she has been betrayed. Her other child will be taken from her and turned into a tool and Miyako cries because she is unable to do anything.

She holds her daughter close as her stomach is torn open and, "A boy, save the child let the mother die" she hears her sister say.

Miyako can barely see but her little daughter, her precious child, she wanted to protect her so badly. She would not even be able to name either of them, would not see their first smile, their first step or hear their first word or send them to school or see them grow up. Miyako wanted to cry to the heavens to scream and shout and yell – till the Gods allowed her more time.

Holding her daughter close as the boy was pulled from her half-dead body, she pressed a kiss against the babe's forehead.

Miyako knows her son will be protected but her daughter would be left alone, by herself, with no one by her side.

_I will protect you, with my life, with my death, my sweet child, I will protect you._

Her daughter cries along with her son.

And everything fades.

The sound of their cries sounded like the heavenly choir promised.

Uchiha Miyako closes her eyes and smiles and then… _nothing_.

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	2. Chapter 2 - Uchiha Shinji

**Title:** Shards of Kaleidoscopes

**Summary:** Snippets from Mirage of Kaleidoscopes storyline.

**Disclaimer:** Author does not own Naruto.

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**Uchiha Shinji**

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Shinji knows that he is a special little boy, he has always known this because mother and father and everyone else tells him that. He doesn't understand why being special means mother is sometimes afraid of touching him or when father pretends to be busy so he doesn't have to spend time with his _only_ son. Shinji doesn't understand but it doesn't really matter in the end to a child who is only five and still so very young.

At the age of five, Shinji had very good control on the basics of chakra control and taijutsu, something he was very proud because it made mother and father so very happy. Sometimes he caught them whispering some about "Not being useless that Miyako" or "He's just like Keisuke, but better."

It is only when Shinji displays prowess in the shinobi arts does mother and father pay attention to him. So he is always trying hard to improve his skills so someday mother will be able to genuinely smile at him and father will be proud to call Shinji his son. He runs and jumps and moves through katas all for the sake of gaining his parent's attention. But sometimes Shinji wishes his family were more like the other Uchiha families – cold but warm. Shinji remembers being slapped by his mother and punished by his father for mentioning his desires so he never does it again. But it doesn't stop the longing.

He sees Aunt Koto and her little baby boy and sees the way she coos over him and smiles every time he does something silly. Shinji wonders if his mother and father were ever like that towards him. But he pushes these thoughts back and thinks another of it because he is still five, still so little, still so young, and he doesn't ever want to think of the fact that his parents don't love him. They must love him, they have to, or else why would they bother raising him. Right?

So Shinji lives in the silence, the coldness and the occasional warmth that flares from his parents like rays of sunlight. He is content just like that because he is _**their**_ little boy and they are _**his**_parents.

But it all comes crashing down when _**that girl**_ comes.

"Shinji, this is your twin sister, her name is Uchiha Nanashi," his parents introduce, and they are so _happy_ in a way that Shinji has never seen before. He feels a twist of jealousy but ignores it in favour of studying the girl in front of him. Nanashi is thin, and delicate, with every bone visible and her skin is pale and gaunt, as though she is sick. And perhaps she is for all he knows. But he feels a sort of kinship with her even though she never talks to him or acknowledges him but Shinji feels as though he knows her.

Nanashi is the new prodigy of the clan, the genius that every Uchiha parents wanted their child to be. And Shinji watches as _**his**_ parents throw him aside to gush over this intruder in their lives. He doesn't like her, he doesn't want her here and he tells her that as he yells at her, loud and clear and he wishes that he would disappear.

"I wish I could do that," Nanashi replied back in a whisper and Shinji gets a glimpse of something dark and uncontrolled lying underneath her black, dark, eyes and he feels fear and runs.

When the Elders ask to see both his and _**her**_ results in training, he eagerly agrees because he wants to defeat Nanashi and show his parents that _**she**_ is nothing compared to him. But it doesn't end up as how he wished.

He fights with all the skills and elegance his five year old body possesses and Nanashi fights as though she is fighting a war – merciless, harsh, and quick. And soon Shinji finds a kunai pressed against his throat and feels the slight pain from his neck and sees the red liquid and he is frozen in fear.

"Yield."

He does so and runs out of the room and he catches a glimpse of his parents' disappointment but it fades soon enough and they gush over Nanashi's accomplishment as though Shinji didn't exist to them.

Shinji never forgives Nanashi for robbing him of the one thing he wanted and she stole so easily.

Never.

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	3. Chapter 3 - Hyuuga Hotaru

**Title:** Shards of Kaleidoscopes

**Summary:** Snippets from Mirage of Kaleidoscopes storyline.

**Author's Note: **I feel so bad for not updating the main story and that is due to my hectic university schedule and midterms, which begins tomorrow! Anyways after my midterms which will take like two weeks to finish, I will without a doubt update Mirage of Kaleidoscope and I will make sure to make it an extra-long chapter to make up for my absence.

**Disclaimer:** Author does not own Naruto.

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**Hyuuga Hotaru**

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Hotaru cannot remember his mother's face clearly anymore. But he remembers that she was beautiful and that he loved her.

He loved his mother the most – his beautiful, delicate, _**cold**_ mother who never held him, smiled at him or spoke to him willingly. But she had protected him from his so-called father's wrath every single time, without fail and the bruises on her face only made her more beautiful in his eyes.

"_He isn't my son; no son of mine should like anything like __**that man**__!" _

There are rumours that he was the child of his mother's lover, dead and buried, never to return. But his mother does not pay it any mind and tells him to be strong against any accusations.

"_You are a Hyuuga and Hyuugas are strong,."_

She was so strong, so very, very strong. He admired her for her strength and her coldness.

Hotaru knows that she didn't want him, had never wanted him and it hurt him so much to think about that. But he was thankful nonetheless that she had still protected him for all those years.

The one time his mother cried was over a ring she had lost – a ring from a dead lover never to return. Something she cherished enough to show her own weakness. His father never knew because he did not care for her, or for his own son. Hotaru's father had his mistresses and his mother had no one.

She was so beautiful when she cried and it made his heart wrench in pain. He had skipped his lessons and plowed through the gardens for the ring.

He found it hiding beneath the rocks near the large pond in the compound and he remembers his bruised hands and bloody nails and the sheer joy that overwhelmed his heart when he held that ring in his small hands.

He remembers rushing back and running down the halls and finding his beautiful, elegant- _**cold, cold**_ – mother sitting there with her pale grey eyes. She had opened her mouth to scold him but he remembers laughing, joyfully, brightly, as he held out the ring to her.

It was the first and last time his mother ever smiled at him. Hotaru remembers how bright and warm her smile was, how she had _**finally**_, _**finally**_ looked at him with some sort of affection? Love? He didn't know but it had been enough for her hold him in her arms and she called him her precious little boy.

"_Thank you Hotaru, my little firefly… thank you for bringing him back to me." _

And the next morning, his mother was dead.

Drowned, the servants whispered, in the pond… she had slit her own wrists.

Hotaru remembers his father's solemn face as he stormed out of the compound. He remembers how peaceful his mother had looked and the smile on her face and he remembers the hot tears running down his face – _**she's gone. Gone. GONE. **_

She was cremated and her ashes scattered in the winds and his father sheds a few tears for show and then leaves. Hotaru remembers kneeling before the plaque with his mother's name and clutching the two rings she had held in her cold hands and he cries and cries and doesn't stop.

But then, he meets _**her**_.

Uchiha Nanashi with dark –_** cold**_ – eyes like his mother, and beautiful and strong and it's as if his mother has come back from the grave in a different form.

And he falls in love with a little girl with cold eyes who smiles at him so warmly and comforts him when he needs it.

"_Hotaru, you know, fireflies carry our wishes to the dead," Nana-san tells him at night when the stars are all glowing in the sky. _

_And she looks at him with those eyes and smiles, "I think your mother gave you that name for a reason."_

"_Fireflies," he whispers and his hands swallow a small, bright light before opening once more and releasing back into the air. _

_**What did you wish for mother? **_

He loves this girl, he knows he loves her and he is willing to die for her.

And when he does, he has never been happier.

_I protected you this time, didn't I? _

Then he sees her tears and her red pinwheel eyes and he _**regrets**_.

And them his life flashes before him and he _**sees**_ himself with Nanashi – smiling, laughing, holding hands, getting married, their _**beautiful**_ children and growing old together.

… He smiles…


End file.
